The art of converting olefins into higher hydrocarbons is a mature technology. Catalytic dimerization, oligomerization and polymerization processes have been developed. It is known in the art, for instance, that normal alpha olefins can be oligomerized into lube-oil range hydrocarbons using boron trifluoride catalysts together with alcohol promoters. Such a process is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,128. It is also known that the normal alpha olefins used for this process can be obtained by ethylene chain growth using ethylene as a starting material and a catalyst such as triethylaluminum.
Production of lube-oil range hydrocarbons from pure monomers such as 1-decene is generally prohibitive from a commercial standpoint in view of the high cost of producing the pure normal alpha olefin. For similar reasons mixtures of normal alpha olefins are not particularly desirable feedstocks for the production of lube-oil range hydrocarbons. It is therefore a continuing goal to provide processes for the production of such hydrocarbons which utilize other feedstocks.